Living as an Expat in Portugal with Josh & Kalie of Expats Everywhere

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Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin Wilson, Host: Hey there, Kristin, from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to Episode 171 of Badass Digital Nomads. Today we have a long awaited episode that's all about living in Portugal.

My guests today are Josh and Kalie of the YouTube channel Expats Everywhere and today they are not holding back about what it's been like for them living in Portugal the last few years. We have an action packed information rich episode for you about everything from how they started living in Portugal to begin with, what their cost of living is like, what their day in the life is like, real estate prices, the food, the D7 visa, all sorts of things, including some questions such as are foreigners and Americans ruining Portugal and lots more.

They also give us some insight into raising a family there, talking about schooling, options for their daughters, and also why it's important for them to raise their daughter in a foreign country. We're also talking about health care. Different neighborhoods in Portugal and in Lisbon, specifically, the best places to live in Portugal. Pros and cons of living in Portugal.

And much more. So sit back, relax and enjoy today's conversation with Josh and Kalie from Expats Everywhere. 

Podcast Interview:

Kristin: Welcome guys. Expats Everywhere on Badass Digital Nomads. This is so exciting and we will link to the previous interview that I did with Josh, and that was probably 2018 or 2019, I think it was 2019.

Josh: 2019, long time ago. Lot's changed.

Kristin: Yeah. And when we did that other interview, were you in Portugal then?

Josh: No, we hadn't arrived yet and actually, Kalie was supposed to be on the interview with me, but had, like, an emergency doctor appointment.

Kalie: Oh, that's right. I was pregnant.

Kristin: Oh.

Kalie: And now I have a two year old, so we were living in Singapore. Did you do the interview in Singapore?

Josh: No, no. We did it back in Florida. Okay.

Kalie: So we were in transition. We are moving from Singapore to the states in the states to Portugal. And I found out I was pregnant. So I think I was supposed to be back, but I had to go to the hospital. Obviously everything was fine, but I couldn't make the interview.

Kristin: So yeah, that's definitely a priority is to make sure you and the baby are okay. And so, yeah, it's great to meet you for the first time, Kalie. So what motivated you guys to move to Portugal? I know that you've lived abroad for a really long time, so can you share with our listeners a little bit about your background of some of the countries that you lived in before and why you chose to relocate and start your family in Portugal?

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. I think actually the journey is a big part of why we're here, because we started out when we lived in Madrid, Spain, and took several trips to Portugal and more specifically to Porto and fell in love with the city. But we didn't really see a clear pathway to live here. And as our journey continued and we found ourselves in Asia and spending time across South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, when we were in Singapore, we were kind of like, Yeah, you remember that time we were in Europe? That was pretty cool. It's like, let's get back to that European lifestyle. And you know, we started to think like, where can we go? And there were two countries that we had on our our short list, Slovenia, because we went to Ljubljana and thought that that was such an amazing city, but we didn't see a real clear pathway for us to go there, apart from continuing to be teachers, international school teachers. And we started to dig into Portugal. We were like, okay, what's different? What's changed? And we saw the D7 visa and we realized like, Whoa, that's something we could do. And we started to dig into more research and figure out how to make the D7 possible because a lot of people think it's a retirement visa. That's totally wrong. You just need to be able to have income like external income, not from a job with in Portugal, but from outside of Portugal. And you can qualify for this visa assuming that you're making a decent amount of money. It's not a lot by American standards, but a decent amount of money. And that's what brought us here.

Kristin: What is that income for that?

Josh: I'll let you speak to our D7 specialist.

Kalie: Yeah, yeah. So you just have to. Make what is minimum wage currently in Portugal which change at the beginning of 2022 to I believe now it's 705. It wasn't hovering in the six hundreds for a while. So the minimum wage here is in their low €700. So that would just be part of your requirement for the DD seven is making sure that you have that minimum. So it's quite low for Americans.

Kristin: Yeah, well, great. We're going to talk about that a bit at the end of the interview and people can find out where they can get your actual program and step by step course on how to successfully apply for the D7 visa. So everyone, stay tuned for that. That's a big question that a lot of people have and will also cover some questions for my Facebook group members, specifically about what it's like living in Portugal. But what were some of your first impressions once you actually move there? And how is it different from your lifestyle in Singapore?

Josh: Well, the first impressions immediately, what jump to mind is we made the right decision when we were kind of reminiscing of our time spent in Spain and trips to Portugal. We had a lot of fond memories, so it was really nice to come back here and have those things still ring true. So I think that was the thing that jumped out to me is like, yes, like everything we thought that we were going to get, we're getting.

Kalie: Sometimes as dangerous you when you live in a place and you visit another place and you kind of have this magical idea in your mind and you're like, Well, I want to live there. But living in a place and traveling to place are two very different things. So that could go one way or the other. So it was nice, like Joshua saying these memories that we had of Porto were still ringing true.

We really, like a lot of people, go to Lisbon or Algarve, but we really love Porto. Sometimes Porto gets a bad rap for the weather being bad or something like that, but it has its own little magic for being a city, but not too big. And then also the river. It's a city. There's a beach option. So. So that's what we really like about it.

Josh: Yeah. In terms of comparing Singapore and Portugal, you know, in Singapore we had international school teaching jobs. So we were making a substantial amount of money. And I mean, coming here, we were essentially working for remote jobs and it was at least half of what we were used to making in Singapore. And in Singapore we were able to kind of live the high life a bit because our income level was so high. So that was a little bit of an adjustment in terms of what we could do entertainment wise and maybe, you know, spending a little more luxuriously, taking nicer trips and stuff. But, you know, by the time we arrived, the pandemic was well under way. So a lot of travel was shut down. So it was okay. And we had a nine month old. Too, and we had and we had a nine month old. 

Kalie: So that was life changes with the luxuries that you have. When a little one comes along. 

Josh: It all goes to her.

Kristin: Yeah, you sacrifice everything for the little one, but it's good. I want to talk a bit about that, about how you're bringing your daughter up there and why and how you think her life will change because of it. Because I've talked with a lot of people lately who've been raising their kids for ten years, 20 years while traveling the world. And there's definitely a big long term impact on their quality of life, too, and hopefully they thank you for it later when they get old enough to realize what you guys did for them. But I would imagine that your cost of living also went down going from Singapore to Portugal. So what would you say is like kind of the average salary range that teachers like foreign teachers can make in Singapore and the cost of living versus Portugal?

Josh: Yeah. So in Singapore, I think a lot of teachers are making at least 40, right. 

Kalie: 40,000 a year. 

Josh Yeah.   40,000 a year USD and then

Kalie: and then. And you have. And you depends on the school for sure. But you have the perks as well, like the housing stipend, travel generally if you're with a school for a certain amount of years, you have they give you flights back to your home country. So all those little perks just help with the savings. I would say.

Josh: Yeah, there are some schools in Singapore that you can make 80K to even six figures like some of the big schools. Big, big schools. We didn't teach at one of those, but we still did well, we were able to save, well, one person's salary. Versus person in here. 

Kalie: There are international schools, but obviously those as a student are much cheaper than they are as a student in Singapore. Therefore you have the wages for teachers and staff are much lower.Of course, cost of living in Portugal versus Singapore is much lower. And you don't have to be a baller, I guess, to live in Singapore but there are certain things that tend to be higher, like housing is one of those that's higher, but you can still eat the hawkers and not be eating, you know, $100 and steak or whatever every day. So you can do - not on a budget, but you can not necessarily eat really expensively in Singapore, but then obviously here in Portugal, you have more options for what you can eat as far as cheap but then you do have those options that are higher priced. Just you don't do those as often I guess. So there's not as many. So you can keep your food budget down as well - for sure. So cost of living is definitely a big difference. So you don't make as much is the thing the main thing as a teacher in Singapore at an international school in Singapore versus an international school in Portugal.

Josh: It's a lifestyle thing though too. I think you can go to Singapore and live on around $2,000 US dollars a month and here you could easily spend $2,000 a month, but you could live here in one of the cities for maybe 1200 to 1500. I think it would be safe. There are people that do it on less. There are people that do it on a thousand outside of the cities. For sure, it's a little more difficult in the cities, though. You have to make some serious sacrifices when it comes to your accommodations. 

Kristin: Yeah. What are the housing prices like right now since we're coming out of the pandemic and tourism is increasing and gas prices and things?

Josh: Yeah, it's soaring. It is actually soaring. So one of the major problems here that we've noticed is there are a lot of short term rentals. And during the pandemic, property management companies and individuals had to switch from renting on the short term market because there was no tourism to putting their properties up for medium and long term and medium and long term - you don't make as much money as short term. So as soon as tourism opened back up, there was a massive flood of apartments that went back to the short term market, which brought down then what was on the long term market, and that forced prices to go up. And we've seen prices just continue to rise. And I think part of that now is due to the influx of foreigners that have come in and they're willing to pay elevated rates so they're not paying what a local would pay. And we've seen prices just continue to go up in the major cities. We've seen in Braga, for example, which I think is - it's in the top five in terms of population. It's I think the third most popular city for foreigners to move to. Yeah. Or at least areas to move to. And it got such a rental shortage. It's unbelievable. Like we talk to realtors up there trying to help people find rentals and it's just.

Kalie: It's like not available. Yeah, there's nothing there. 

Josh: So for example, when we first moved, we rented a place for 900 and €900 and it was not a very big place. It was a place where if we show it to our Portuguese viewers, they're like, I wouldn't pay more than 650 to live there, you know, that type of thing. We're paying a property management company that's used to dealing with foreigners, like they're kind of targeting the expat market.

Now, that same place rents for 1200 1250, something like that. So in the space of two years, it's gone from 900 1250.

Kristin: Wow.

Kalie: Now they can charge that it's 1010. Yeah, people need to and people are willing to pay to do that.

Kristin: Yeah. So that's basically the whole cost of living. But you were saying you could live in Portugal for 1200 a month or you could spend 1200 a month just on your rent.

Josh & Kalie: Oh, yeah, definitely.

Kristin: Yeah. I remember when I was there in 2018, my friend was paying like seven or $8,000 a month for a vacation rental in Lisbon. Like it was crazy.

Josh: Well, it is crazy. The nice place tho.

Kristin: So it was really, really nice. It only had two bedrooms. I mean, it had a nice view and it was super fancy, like a nice area. But that's the kind of markup that there was on the vacation rental market there and that was pre-pandemic. So that's actually something I talked about in a livestream this week because somebody was asking, Are foreigners ruining Portugal?

Josh: Hmm. Can we talk about that? 

Kristin: I had studied this a bit in the past and looking at the economic impact of digital nomads and ex-pats living in other places. But it was a negligible impact compared to tourism because there could be millions of tourism arrivals and there could be like a few thousand digital nomads in the whole country or foreigners living there long term.

What is your perspective on that? Like when you look at the numbers of I think the last figure I saw was that like five or 7000 U.S. citizens had officially relocated to Portugal. But that doesn't count all of the unofficial people that are just hanging out there on tourist visas. Do you think that foreigners are ruining the country and increasing the prices and just kind of ruining this opportunity of people that want to go and live in Portugal?

Josh: There is a ton to unpack out there. So I think on your live stream, you said exactly our short answer. You said that perfectly. It's really the tourism that's having the bigger impact, which I mean, tourists are foreigners. Yes. But it's not the foreign residents that want to come and live and integrate with the society and pay local rates and eat at local restaurants. So I think there's like a bit of cognitive dissonance between some of the anger that has been reported in the media and what's actually causing it. The tourism is definitely a massive factor in what's happening now. Are some foreign residents coming over here and paying over the odds? Absolutely. But the impact is so negligible, like you said, and that figure is around 7000.

There's 7000 Americans that have moved here in 2021, I believe is the stat, which is like the. 24th. Rate, 24th most represented country in terms of immigration into Portugal. So like there was an L.A. Times article or whatever that came out just a month or two ago. And a lot of people were resharing this thing. And it was talking about how Portuguese had a backlash towards Americans because we were forcing prices up. And it's like, Look, the country that is 24th most represented in your immigration is not affecting anything. It is not a scratch. 

Kalie: And the problem is, is in that article, I think they said it's gone up 50% and immigration of Americans has gone up 50% from the year before or something like that. So the year before was true, 3000 and the next year it was almost 7000, something like that. So yes, it is true, it's 50%. But you can see then how that can be quite misleading on how many people that actually is. We're not talking about millions of people then coming in 50% higher. And I think that's something that gets lost on people is, you know, we lived in Spain back in 2009 and 2011 and we would tell people about Portugal from the US, they wouldn't even know where it was. Portugal was never on anyone's map. When they would come to Europe, they'd go to London, Paris, Rome. 

They didn't even know where Portugal was. Now it's becoming more evident to Americans that Portugal exists and it's a way to live the European lifestyle. So you are seeing a bit of an influx in that sense. You see tourism as well because people are seeing that they come here for tourism. But the thing is, is Brits, the French, the Dutch, the Germans, they've all been coming to Portugal on tourism for years and years and years. 

So you can't just say that it's Americans that are now changing prices when they've had tourists coming for a while. And when we walk around and we go to different cities, we can hear all the different languages. It's not that we're hearing Americans. We're hearing, you know, British, English and French and German and everything. So I think that now Americans are thinking that it's the US that's coming over, but people, it's just kind of just a newer idea to people. So it seems like it's a lot.

Josh: For sure. Yeah. I think the three bigger nationalities that are making maybe a larger impact, positive or negative, I'm not drawing any conclusions there, but would be Russian, Chinese and Israeli.

Kristin: Okay.

Josh: They seem to be moving bigger amounts of money into the country for investment or whatever.

Kristin: Interesting. I've noticed that in a lot of cities like in Vancouver, in Canada, having, you know, a lot of marketing and such in Mandarin and property magazines kind of geared towards the Chinese market and Russian as well. In Thailand, I was hearing Russian everywhere, especially on the streets and signage and people are saying like, yeah, after the tsunami, like, a bunch of Russian investors bought up a lot of the properties. And that's interesting too. I wonder how that's changed a bit since the war on Ukraine. Yeah, and the figure with, you know, doubling from, you know, 3000 to 7000 or whatever, that's so typical of the US media to kind of blow it out of proportion and make it like everything's revolving around the U.S.. It kind of reminds me of when you see the headlines about like 50% more Americans are renouncing their citizenship and it's also like 3000 to 5000 or whatever.

Josh & Kalie: Yeah.

Kristin: So it's still like a drop in the bucket compared to the total population. So what do you think are some of the destinations that people can go to, people who really want to live in Portugal a long term and like integrate with the culture, integrate with the local lifestyle? What are some of the like off the beaten places that they can go to that are as expensive, like, you know, Lisbon, Algarve, probably. Braga, you mentioned there's these like top places, like what are the kind of most popular places and what are some places maybe off the radar where people can still find good deals?

Josh: Yeah, I think this is honestly a difficult question to answer because the whole country has something to offer somebody. Now, not everybody is going to like Lisbon, not everybody is going to like Porto. But there's very likely a spot for everybody who's interested in Portugal, right?

Kalie: Yeah, definitely. I think the main thing that you have to ask yourself is what kind of weather do you want? And then what size of a city you want? Because when we talk about Lisbon, Lisbon is sprawling. It is a big city. And then Porto, which is the second largest city in the country, is so much smaller. It's a city, but it's so much smaller compared to Lisbon and then it just continues to dwindle down from there, like Braga and such. 

So there are good qualities to these bigger places, if that's what you're looking for. And there are still places that you can find that maybe aren't down right in the city center but are still considered part of the region. Are the area that you can live on a budget if that's what you're looking for. But as far as maybe some of the smaller places, I think central you want to go —

Josh: I was going to say my new favorite place for that like to fit that criteria is Leonardo Castello. 

Kalie: Which is great, but it is further north and it's close to the Spanish border up north. So it's a beautiful area. It's on the water, but it will get cold and it will get rainy. So you just have to take that into consideration. So that's my weather insights are things to think about. But then you have the whole Silver Coast, which is, you know, mainly between Lisbon and Porto. So you get out of the craziness of Lisbon, but you can also, depending on how far north you go or south, really, you can be on the train line, which is nice because then you're connected to one of the cities. Forget itde fauge. If for example, is a great one on the water and they can get a little jersey. So during the summer you'll see an influx of people that will go there. But we have friends who have rented a one bedroom there they can use as home base and they pay 350 a month for such a simple one bedroom. But it's in a great area and they're close to the water. If they want to go to the beach and they can just leave their stuff there and travel because they pay such a low price. So something like that is a great option. And then when you move into Central, this is also where you're going to find some of those hidden gems. Tamar is beautiful again, smaller though, so you got that keep that in mind. Do you think in a city life and these wouldn't be the answers? They'll have what you need, but they're not going to have three different options of like, you know, maybe a Thai restaurant, right? Lisbon has a bunch of them. Porto might have 3 to 5 of that type of cuisine, whereas these might not have any or they'll have one. So just keeping that in mind, Tamar, Lera, Coimbra is also popular.

Josh: I think Coimbra is rising in price though Coimbra is a university town. There's always a lot of students coming out of the town, so trying to find cheaper accommodations, it usually gets snapped up by them. 

Kalie: Yeah. And then you might be around student and I guess you're in student housing, you might be around a lot of students and then that's actually a weird one and it is cute. That's a weird one though, because it's busy during the school year and then all the students leave for the summer. But that's when a lot of tourists come in because I mean, the university and the library there, they're really well known. So it brings in a lot of tourists to see how beautiful they are.

Josh: People that like the coast might like, Edi Seta, which is kind of north of Lisbon along the coast.

Kalie: I would say the ones that mainly people stay away from is not a lot of foreigners are going to Alentejo. That's still a lot of just land out there, makes good wine. 

Josh: But to give Alentejo a shout out, Évora and Basia are both nice places. The problem that you'll find with Alentejo in general is in the summer it gets wicked hot and in the winter it gets cold. It gets like bone chilling cold.

Kalie: But they are more remote for people who are interested in that, or maybe buying some land. And then really in between Lisbon and when you get to Algarve, there's just not much, nothing really on the coast there is desirable. So if you're going to do coast and stay away from Algarve, Lisbon and Porto, you're looking at the Silver Coast. There's something small to medium size between Lisbon and Portugal, I would say.

Kristin: Yeah. And some surf towns around there too.

Kalie: Yeah. Nazara is big for that. Yeah. It's definitely like a beachy feel, you know, kind of like a Daytona or something. So you get a lot of - a lot of tourists that come for the beach, for the surf, and then it can be a bit of a ghost town in a sense during the winter and less people coming for the waves because apparently the waves are the best in December. So that's always interesting. So people will go – 

Josh: December through February. Here's when the waves biggest the. Biggest waves in the world.

Kristin: I'm not into that. I am into surfing, but I do not like wetsuits and big waves. So difficult to surf like I was surfing in Norway wearing the super thick wetsuit and I was like, never again. 

Kalie: Well, then you wouldn't want to surf here because Atlantic is cold and even in the summer. So you I think everyone who surfs, wears a wetsuit. I don't know if I've seen anyone out there surfing even when it's hot in the summer. What do you think without a wetsuit? Because The Atlantic's cold.

Josh: So we don't watch a lot of surfers. Seem out like that. But that'sfurther north right yeah I don't know about down south.

Kalie: That's true.

Kristin: How much time are you guys spending in Porto and then how much time are you spending kind of traveling and hanging out in other places?

Josh: Yeah, and that's a tricky one because we don't tend to just go places now in Portugal for the fun of it. I mean, we have fun whenever we're there, but we're usually there for a purpose which is shooting content and showing that to our audience. So we go there with kind of work on our mind. Let's see. I would say last year we spent probably four months outside of Porto, but the reason for that is we had a big project that we wanted to do, which took us three months away from the city. This year we've probably already spent. We're halfway through the year. We've probably already spent a good month and a half outside of Porto.

Kalie: Yeah, really. We've traveled and got things a bit more open. It's easier to travel outside of Portugal as well. So for a while we were doing a lot of traveling within Portugal for content and then also just the ease of what was going on. But now we're able to get out a bit more. So planning trips — we can't sit still for too long, I think is a thing. We love Porto. We love our friends here. And we come back, we connect. We've got this community, we do this, we do this. But then, I mean, it's pretty sad when our two year old asks to go to our hotel when Sasha back hotel. Hotel, like, you know, normally by then we already have a trip plan. So it's like, yes, next week we're going to hotel and she gets really excited. 

Kristin: That's funny. She's got the travel bug already.

Kalie: She says she loves the airplanes, she loves hotels. She gets pretty excited.

Josh: Any any mode of transportation. I mean, I know that's like a normal kid thing, but like she gets really excited because I think that she knows there's a trip involved. It's not just, you know, that thing, but like there's a journey that we're about to go on. There's an adventure that's about to be had, which is really cool.

Kristin: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. At such a young age. And did you guys decide to buy any property in Portugal or are you renting?

Josh: Well, we're renting right now. We're currently looking so on the market actually. We're doing a project on the channel, not just for the channel, but for ourselves personally, where we're searching for a building that will fit at least four units. There are three other people that want to invest with us and we're going to go in. We're going to try to find something that needs to be rehabbed because we all feel like there's a ton in Porto ton of buildings in Porto that that kind of need to be brought back to their former glory.

And there's not enough people that are out there doing it right now. But yeah, we want to find something renovated and move into it and kind of live in with some communal space, obviously have separation and our own unit, but have like maybe a back garden that all of us can enjoy as opposed to it just being a private garden for one tenant, you know, or maybe a rooftop terrace where everybody can go up and enjoy that.

So yeah, we've got some other people that are involved with us as we search if we find something bigger. I've got a short list of over 40 people that are willing to jump in, which is pretty crazy. This project's taken on a life of its own. But yeah, so we're looking to buy. We just haven't found the right one yet.

Kalie: And we're a little picky in the sense that since we are buying, we want to be in our favorite neighborhood. So it obviously cuts down what's available. And I mean trying to find a place in Portugal is a bit like the Wild West because you see all these buildings, especially in Porto, that it's like this looks like it's just, you know, falling to pieces, but there's no for sale sign or anything.

So you have to find out what's going on with this. And every one has their own story and it's sometimes it's like people are resistant to sell even though they can't invest in and they can't bring it back to a livable state.

Kristin: Maintain it.

Kalie: They can't maintain it. Sometimes it's too many people own it and you know, five want to sell it. But that sixth one does not want to and they can't do it because technically they all own a piece of it or something. So there's just so much logistically that goes into it when you think all this could work or this could work. But yeah, so we have people helping us, trying to get down and figure out what's going on with some of these places that we like because we've got a few that are looking good, so we'll be getting close.

Kristin: Yeah, that's a good model to use, even if it's not as competitive in the market compared to other places. So there's definitely opportune parties to be had there. And what is kind of like the price per square foot or per square meter that you're finding in Porto at the moment for this type of residence?

Josh: So if you're looking at something that is in need of deep rehab, then you're looking between €500 and upwards of €2,000 per square meter. If you're pushing that 2000, it could be really difficult to have equity in the property after it's all finished, after the rehab is done. But if you can get in around 1500, then you're sitting pretty nicely because basically all of the new construction is coming in and around €3,000 per square meter and a lot of it's actually being oversold, overvalued for like four or four and a half and that's in Porto and Lisbon prices are even milder. Lisbon Prices are like three and a half is kind of the lower end. And it's not outrageous to see four and a half or €5,000 per square meter. But our goal with this project is to make sure that are all in budget. And the way we break it down price per square meter is we hit 3000 because that way we know that we have equity, we're positive in the property As soon as we wrap it up.

Kristin: And can you guys get a loan there or is it cash purchases?

Josh: Yeah, foreigners can get a loan. We're going to be seeking one. Two of the four investors want a loan. The other two want to be cash. Mortgage rates are really good right now. Interest rates are really good compared to states for sure. I mean, they are going up because of the economic situation across Europe, but you're looking at anywhere between 2.8 and 3.8 fixed.

Kristin: Wow. 

Josh: Yeah. Somewhere between like 20 and 30% down is kind of the norm. It's possible to go lower than 20%, but it's rare. It's really rare. Okay. Locals can get 10% down loans, but 20 or 30% is realistic. 

Kalie: And besides that, everything is about the same. They don't necessarily discriminate because you're a foreigner. So it's just how much money you put down. They do take into consideration your age and obviously your financial background and everything. 

Josh: Yes, that's different.

Kalie: But as far as that, comparing like, oh, I'm a foreigner, is it going to be hard for me to get a mortgage? Not necessarily. If you have all those ducks in a row. That's right.

Kristin: Yeah. In some countries, foreigners can't get a loan or it's a 10% or 12% or something crazy.

Josh: Right.

Kristin: And then the people that you're investing with, you mentioned your community there in Porto. How did you meet them and how have you been able to make friends and form your friends circle?

Josh: They're okay. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of two answers. So how did we link up with this group? All through YouTube, we put out a poll on our community tab just to see if there was any interest and we redirected people to email us in the end, like at the end of the poll. Then I had a survey to make sure of what we're trying to do aligns with what they want. And there were three other people that really stuck out single lady, a single guy, and then two brothers. 

And I've just been communicating with them through WhatsApp and sometimes we jump on a Skype call so I can fill them in on the progress and how things are going. The legal components of how this is going to work will be a little tricky, but it shouldn't be impossible at all. Like we should be able to do it. We just won't know exactly how it's going to be done until we identify the building, because there's like more than one way to skin a cat.

Kristin: Oh, so are they not in Portugal?

Josh: No, no. One person's never actually visited Portugal. The other two had already planned on retiring here. And they like the area, the target area. The other lady has not set foot in Portugal, so. Yeah, fun. 

Kristin: That's cool. 

Josh: How do we make friends? 

Kalie: Yeah, but I will say about that. I mean, that's another thing that people maybe think that we're creating some sort of what's the term that you use.

Kristin: Like a co-living or commune or

Kalie: Yes. And that's not the case pretty much. We all have the same goal of making sure that the plumbing is good, electrical is good, insulation is good for soundproofing, for possible mold, all of that. We all have that goal. And the best thing we can do is completely renovate a whole building and make sure we know what's behind the walls. But that takes money and obviously space, like we don't need a whole building ourselves. So that's kind of how this idea came about doing it with other people. So while we will know our neighbors right off the bat, it's not like we're eating each other's place every night for dinner, like rotating or something like that. Your neighbors are your neighbors. Yeah. And we'll know our neighbors. And we're all on the same page of how we want things to be. But it's not some sort of like, co-living kind of space, so there is that. So even though we haven't met them, we obviously have talked to them online, but we haven't met them in person. We feel very comfortable with that situation.

Now. How do we meet people? Actually, that are friends in here - in person here, we do meet ups regularly in Porto or if we're visiting a city we try to do a meetup and actually that's how we met. A lot of the people that we hang out with on a regular basis and they have become really good friends of ours. There's been some sort of connection to our channel or us living here, our course, something like that, and people will email and then when you get together you find out that you have a connection and it's fun hanging out and it goes past the whole, Oh, you helped me move here type thing and you just become friends and live life together.

Josh: Yeah. And I will say this because I know that not everyone in your audience is going to have a YouTube channel where they can just, like, put out the bat signal and everyone shows up for them. We met two good friends here very early on at the grocery store. We heard them speaking English, American, English, and we just struck up a conversation with them and decided to swap contacts. It's been easy meeting people with a kid. You know, you go to a park and your kids are playing. You strike up a conversation with them, whether they're foreigner or Portuguese. 

That's easy. With Portuguese, maybe it's a little more difficult to get invited, you know, back to the house to have a meal or whatever, because they already have their group of friends. befriending, shopkeepers and, you know, people that own establishments that you frequent as a really easy way to kind of get to know a local and start to form those kind of relationships. 

Kalie: Because then they want to introduce you to locals that they know or family members or something they think you would have a good time hanging out with. And yeah, it just kind of snowballs from there. So really just being open to if you hear English sitting at a cafe, strike up a conversation or if you're working on your Portuguese with the server and they speak English, you speak a Portuguese and to strike up this type of conversation and stuff just snowballs. And then when you meet people and you hang out with people, then they know some other people like, okay, I'm going to invite my friends and I'll invite my friends. And all of a sudden you just end up having this big sphere of people, bigger pool that you can hang out and get to know the people that you have similar interests with.

Josh: Yeah. And walking the dog has helped me to because our dog attracts people because he's very small. So I strike up conversations with people all the time.

Kristin: What kind of dog do you have?

Josh: He is a 3 pound Yorkshire terrier. Is like tiny. Yeah, a little. Very little, yeah.

Kristin: Do you guys speak Portuguese now or like, what level are you at?

Josh: We are just learning Portuguese. I mean, I think we are food fluent for sure. Like we can go to a restaurant and order no problem, we know basically everything that's on the menu can have those kind of conversations and it really impresses the server. But it's like, I want to talk religion, politics or anything technical, and then we're out of our depth. 

Kalie: Or just even if they use a word like a vocab word that I'm just not familiar with or is just I don't use it often. So maybe it's a synonym to a word I use and I'm like the deer in the headlights, like, oh, I have to try to process like what sometimes in context you can figure it out if it's just one word in a sentence. But other times I'm like, I don't know what that is. And they can see the wheels turning and they'll switch to English like, let me think for a second. But Josh, it's definitely you're a risk taker in that sense. Oh, can you just throw it out there? And even if you look like an idiot, I'm still on that. I'm going to try. And thankfully in Porto, up in the north, they're very kind and they let you give it a go.

Josh: Yeah, I mean I've been studying a tremendous amount like off and on and I've been hearing a lot better. I've been hearing it. But being able to then respond is where I'm a little stuck.

Kristin: Yeah, it always happens where, like, you can understand more than you can speak back. But eventually you get over that hurdle. At least I did with Spanish. But I still can understand more than I speak and right. I guess that's just how it is. But yeah, some topics are hard to talk about even in your native language. So it's but it's good to hear that you're having, after all these years of living there, that you still feel like there's a warm reception from the locals and that it's not just cliche, like, Oh, the people are so nice in X country, and then you have the other media narrative that’s like the locals hate Americans because they're taking over the property prices or whatever, right? So yeah, what has the reality been, you know, as foreigners living there in Porto and trying to integrate and like actually be locals, do you feel like you're accepted by the locals and to what degree?

Kalie: Our experience has been that especially up in the north and in Porto, that they're very kind. It depends on what city you're in, I think, how warm they feel. But the North is known to be very warm towards anyone, so that's really nice. And then I mean, people love kids here, so that definitely makes it easier. And people being a little more gracious with us, I guess you could say.

And with us trying to assemble through certain Portuguese phrases and such. But I think that overall our experience has been that people are just so nice here, really nice in the north. And then it depends on what other part of the country you're in, how it goes.

Josh: Yeah, I would say, like if we're giving a grade to how nice Portuguese people are, then the country as a whole gets an A. But then if you want to break it down region by region, not everybody is getting an A, you know what I mean? Like Algarve and bless them, like bless their hearts.They just suffer with a lot of tourism and foreigners and heat and all of that. Like all of that combined. They seem to be a very agitated people at times when they're having to speak English or someone else's language rather than Portuguese. So we have had some moments where they have been not so nice to us. That's Algarve and then more. You work your way up north like the better it gets. So if Algarve like C minus, then it just gets progressively better as you get up to the A-plus of Porto. Lisbon you’d say is a B. 

Kalie: Lisbon a B, it's such a busy city. So you just get people. Just they're busy, right? They don't have time for it. But no one in the service industry still do have time for it. Whereas I think down in Algarve, the service industry, they just don't have time for as as you work your way up a lot in Lisbon do depending on, you know, maybe who you get on the day especially and then you get up, you know, up here into Porto and they get all the time you need. So that's good. Well, I guess unless you're in a hurry.

Josh: And let's not head on invasions, there's sweet people. Very, very sweet people. Lovely.

Kristin: Yeah. I kinda got that perception when I was in Croatia a few years ago, like depending on where I was because people hit up all the hotspots and I just felt like the locals were like, you know what, it's 100 degrees outside. It's the peak of summer, it's the peak of tourist season. And like we're so over this, there's more in the mood for like small talk. They're just like, What do you want? Like at the restaurant, you know, they're like, Oh, no, at the next person. And yeah, I can't really blame them because I was hot and frustrated too, because it's like sweltering heat and there's no trees and there's a lot of people and crowds and of course that was also before the pandemic. 

But then Croatia was open a lot during the pandemic as well. But I'm sure if you went into like the interior in the north and like areas that are off of like the coastal tourism areas that you would find just a lot more laid back people and more moderate weather not so hot and a little bit slower pace of life and like more open to having that small talk with foreigners.

So yeah, it probably goes for a lot of places. And then what do you guys plan to do? Like your daughter is still two years old, but are you going to homeschool her or do you want her to grow up in the public school system like integrated with Portuguese society? What's your plan there?

Kalie: So we definitely think it's important to get her out socializing with kids, her age and we want her now to learn Portuguese is the best time to learn. So in September she's going to start —There are these things here called creche and they're varying types. There are public ones that are run a bit more like a daycare, but then there are private ones that will have like music class and gym class and English class, and they're very affordable. You can have for working parents, they can be there all day 7 to 7, but instructional period is a set time. So from like 930 to 430, the one that will be taking her to is when the instructional period is. 

So they learn what it's like to be orderly, to line up, to have different classes, to share all the things. I think kids need. And it's quite common for them to go to these as early as really six months if parents need them. But around Sia’s is age like around two is a good time that kids start going to these. So this is a crash. And then in Portugal, kids have to be in school starting at the age of six. So this creche and most of them go up until then and then for us, we have to make a decision and most likely we will send her to an international school. We have the option of the public schools. You have private schools and then you have international schools and we aren't sure how long they'll be in Portugal. So for us we'll probably be looking at the international schools, but a lot will depend. We have to see kind of how things go with this crash and where we are, because obviously, since she's only two, we have time to figure out what we're going to do and what will be best schooling. But definitely getting into school. No home schooling here. 

Josh: Yeah. And the reason that we want to go the international school route or we're thinking that is because it's just easier to transfer to another place if we have her in an international school that has an American curriculum and then we go to a different city country with an international school that has an American curriculum, it's a much easier transition. So there's nothing wrong with Portuguese public schools? 

Kalie: No, no, actually, I hear that they're pretty good.

Kristin: Yeah. And where are you guys thinking of going? Tell us a little bit about the residency category that you applied for and then how long you plan to stay in Portugal after that, or is that expiring or what's your situation? 

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Josh: We are not thinking about moving anywhere, which is a good thing because when we do think about moving somewhere, we move on. So we're not leaving the visa that we moved on is the D7 visa. And what that is, is essentially it's a long term residence program and you can renew it. So after your first appointment to confirm that you are a resident, you get two years. And then after two years we're coming up on the beginning of next year, we will get another three years, assuming they let us stay in the country. 

I don't want to make any false assumptions here. So if they let us stay in the country, we'll get three more years and then after that, you can actually switch to what is it called long term 

Kalie: long term because it’s still considered a temporary, temporary visa. you can do long term resident. 

Josh: Or you can start the citizenship process at your fifth year, like completing your fifth year. And then that takes about a year to do from what we've heard of. And we haven't fully considered going that route. 

Kalie: But it's I guess also because we still have time seeing where we are after five, six years, if that's the route that we want to take, because obviously there are pros and cons to it, but then there's also something to consider. There's a tax scheme that helps us. It's tax breaks called NHR and only good for ten years.

Yeah. It's separate from the residency program as well. Yeah. That's something that's different, that's not tied to your visa. Actually, Portuguese can get it as well if they're out of the country for a certain amount of time. But that would be something to consider because taxes can be pretty high here. So after ten years, where are we with all of that? So all of these things are in the back of our minds, I guess, and we're not quite sure what that's going to look like, but we do feel like we still have time and obviously we're looking to buy a place. So that means that we're not ready to leave just yet.

Kristin: Yeah. And what issues are — you were mentioning before we started the conversation that you guys had some issues with your NHR. Or  NIF number? So what was happening there?

Josh: I mean, we've had all sorts of issues with all of that. 

Kalie: Portugues bureaucracy. Well, we also came in at a different time. Since we did come during COVID, we didn't actually have to have our NIF number or our bank  account set up before as part of the visa process. Now, as a requirement, you do have to. 

Josh: Can we explain what a NIF is. 

Kalie: Sure. Go ahead. 

Josh: Yeah, no, go ahead. 

Kalie: Oh, well, your NIF is just like your tax ID number. It's different than a Social Security number, but I guess you can kind of—they have your Social Security number as well, but it's kind of similar to that. So it's one of the requirements of the D7 visa. And when we came in, because there weren't any ways to do it remotely and you couldn't come to the country and get it done, we didn't have to have it. So we were kind of in this weird intake. Now there are companies that can do it remotely that are affordable and not scammy. They're a scammy ones out there as well, we got to be careful with. And so it is part of the requirement. So we just had issues with that because we got here, you know, the finances offices, these are the offices that used to just be able to walk in and get this number. They're all closed. They're not doing anything in person. But then no one seemed to be working either. So we're trying to get these numbers. 

We're trying to do these appointments and they say, okay, you can do it online. You got to get this code mailed to you. Of course, the code never arrived, you know, so just little things like this. It was like, well, we can't get into this portal because we don't have code and navigating this code. So you have all of that stuff. 

Josh: And it was a big matter of timing though. It was just the wrong time. It was like this two week period where you ended up getting like locked outside of this loop that they had the circuit. And it was just very frustrating because it caused a lot of other issues like the NHR. So it was very difficult for us to then register for NHR. And those are two different things. Your NIF is your tax I.D. number, but just because you have a NIF doesn't mean you have a NHR. Just because you have D7 doesn't mean you have NHR. You have to apply for it, but you also have to get into your NIF portal to apply for it. So, you know, 

Kristin: all these caveats.

Kalie: Yeah. And I think. They were confused as well because so much of this was done in person. It used to be done in person or much easier then nothing was. You could do anything in person. So then it's all this stuff is online and they're having to change their policies and how they do it. And it just was this perfect storm of like. We survived though.Yeah, we’re good. I'm good now.

Kristin: Is that what motivated you to create a D7 course to help other people?

Kalie: Actually with the course thing? People kept saying, ask me to do a course. We have a playlist of us going through the whole process when we were in the States. We're driving, you know, okay, we're driving to FedEx to go get this or whatever it might be. And so we were like, Okay, we have this playlist that lays it out for everyone and so many people kept writing us saying, You should put this into a course, like have it really laid out for people. And so what we thought was laid out in the videos, people wanted more. And so that's kind of how the idea started. And we started accumulating all of these helpful resources and recommendations and discounts for people. And so all of that can be put in there. And we have it's both video form and written form and I can update it as needed because requirements are ever changing, of course, and so I just keep updating it as I need too. So that's kind of how the course came about.

Josh: Yep.

Kalie: Yeah. I send people to your course all the time. I don't know. Hopefully my affiliate link is working. And so I think with code Kristin, you can get $10 off. This is for like a few years ago. So I've just been sending people whenever they ask me about D7, I'm like, talk to Josh and Kaylee because I have not done it. And yeah, and it's only $79, so it's like well worth the investment to get that step by step guide and just all the resources at your disposal. So we'll link up to that in the show notes for people if they're in that process and they don't want to pull their hair out.

Josh: Yeah, we'll definitely make sure that you have the correct link and the code is. Kristin.

Kalie: Yeah, I think that —that was something that was really important to us because we seeing that with people becoming more interested in Portugal, you had a lot of companies pop up and lawyers pop up that were asking crazy prices for something like the NIF or the bank account or something that you have to have. Yeah, but at that time you couldn't get into the country to get it, so you had to pay someone to do it remotely. You hear all these stories of, you know, people giving their money to do something and then that person vanished. And so we did everything on our own, which is how we know how to do it. So that's what why this is like a DIY course that we do give recommendations of like how we did it, like, oh, we went to Walmart for the money order or something like that. Then we've just accumulated all of these resources that people can use as well, and we wanted to make it super affordable because it should be affordable. Obviously you have to pay for things like getting your FBI background check, you have to pay for that. But you can do that on your own. You don't have to hire someone to help you with that. So that was the whole idea of the course. Just keeping it affordable to have is this guide for people and step by step guide on how to do it. 

Josh: DIY Yeah, yeah. 

Kristin: Because these sorts of things, it's not rocket science, but it is science. You, you know, it's like it's not just necessarily like going to the government portal and be like, Oh, this is how you do it. It's like you get into the process, you realize all the other stuff you didn't know, that you didn't know. And then it just like becomes this whole thing. But that's true in any country. So that's very helpful.

Josh: I think the major thing that we tried to into was the emotional side of it is like we know that this is a stressful thing and there's a lot of uncertainty. So that's one of the things that we kept focusing on, like as we delivered the content in the course, like the emotional side, like we know how you're feeling right now.

Kristin: It's frustrating.

Josh: yeah. We were in your seat. And I think that's kind of the value add that we tried to give within the course.

Kristin: Yeah. Awesome. Well, we'll definitely link to that. And then I have some questions here from the Badass Digital Nomads Facebook group. So instead of doing a lightning round, we'll do like a lightning round of Portugal questions and some of the questions we've already answered, like on Cost of Living. 

Philip asks, What district would you live in? In Lisbon.

Josh & Kalie: Avenue isnovish. Park das nashshoy., so that's not Swedish.

Kristin: Okay.

Kalie: Are we supposed to elaborate or is it like, boom, boom, boom?

Josh: Lightning round?

Kristin: Well, it's lightning round, but everyone knows my lightning rounds are so slow because we elaborate. 

Josh: That's like a thunderstorm.

Kalie: Say, for me, Avenue isnovish. I like the space and how it was open with bike lanes it was a little flatter the feel of it was just like not too crazy and chaotic like some of the other parts of Lisbon are. But it's still extremely well-connected to get to wherever you might need, whether that's in the Lisbon region or in the whole country. So for me, it had a little bit of everything, the history still the people. You felt like you were in a city, but also it was modern too. So is this a great mix? 

Josh: Yeah. I mean, I didn't want to say the same thing as Kalie, so I chose a different area now. But we just did a five video series on the most livable neighborhoods or most popular expat neighborhoods in Lisbon and I gave the rating of 5 out of 5 to 2 different places. One was what she said. One was what I said, 

Kalie: Okay and I did four for Park das nashshoy. That's not necessary.  I would live there. Well, but if I had to choose one, it would be avenues. Okay.

Kristin: Okay. We'll add that playlist, the shownotes too. And then Filip also asks, would Porto or Faro be better from a cost of living perspective? So is there any difference in the cost of living between those two areas on average? I know it's hard to specify.

Josh: I don't know. Actually. I think that maybe the only significant difference might be in housing, but I've not compared enough of how much medium and long term rentals are in. Sorry, 

Kalie: I don't think there's many is the thing. 

Josh: There's not the inventory is definitely different. I think in terms of cost of living, it would be negligible. The difference would be negligible.

Kristin: Okay, that makes sense. Dave asks How do you get around without a car? Like what is the best form of public transportation in your area?

Josh: In Porto, the metro is fantastic. I would say if you live in the city center, walking is perfectly acceptable. We go long stretches without even getting on the metro like we have MetroCards, but we don't activate them as monthly passes. We just buy like ten trip packs because we won't use it enough to make the monthly pass worth it. 

Kalie: Yeah. So the metro is really good sometimes on the weekends it doesn't run as frequently as I would like, but other than that, they're easy to navigate and they're clean. There are busses as well, but those are a little less reliable as far as timing, mainly because of traffic. Yeah, but then train travel is really popular as well. We can get on a train and be in Braga in an hour or down to Lisbon, so that's really common. Now the trains are a lot more on the coastal part. If you're down in Algarve there is a train, but it's just a little harder to navigate to the different cities. So a lot more people have a car down in Algarve, but in the cities and Lisbon, the tram, a lot of people will take the tram as well. It's a popular way to travel, not just a touristy thing, but it's just a little slower. So yeah, public transportation in the cities is really easy and Porto is not that big. So we walk a lot.

Josh: Lightning round. Come on now.

Kalie: Well, yeah, I guess. Yeah, she said elaborate. There's a lot of us. 

Kristin: Yes, I've noticed that with the metros and places that with the delays, sometimes it can be longer when you're waiting for the metro and then the delays it's longer than walking. So I end up walking a lot or biking, but it's way harder to buy in areas of Portugal with the hills and stuff.

Josh: Yeah, for sure. I mean, you bring up an amazing point because and the scooters have become wildly popular, electric bikes are becoming much more prolific. But you're right, like in down town Lisbon in downtown Porto, it's hilly.

Kristin: Yeah.

Josh: You know, it's risky, especially on cobblestones.

Kristin: Yeah, no, thanks. Okay. Sam asks, can you give us some insight into the food scene? Hashtag priorities. And I know you guys are foodies, so maybe some food tips for Lisbon or Porto.

Josh: Yeah. I mean, the food scene is amazing here from Petit Gauche, which are like tapas. You have tapas in Spain, Petit Gauche here. So those are like small plates that you share. You order a bunch for the table and then everyone passes them around. So that's more communal style dining and there's all sorts of foods that you can get with that from your potatoes and ham to seafood, whatever. And then when it comes to the traditional dishes chaud, wildly popular here, you shouldn't make a trip to Portugal without trying one of the variations of chaud.

Kalie: Yes, seafood is really big here. So chaud is their biggest. But you I mean, up here especially, you can get sardines, octopus, those are some popular ones. Iberian pork is really big. So not just like pork chunks, but also the ham. Parma ham, I think is what a lot of Americans would call it. Right. A cured ham. That's probably the better word for it.

Kristin: Like prosciutto.

Josh: Yeah. Instead of going like the Italian route with Parma ham. Prosciutto, yeah. It's called cured ham. Everyone knows what we're talking about right now, so.

Kalie: And we're talking about food, so. Yeah. We have to talk about the Fransisin which is a Porto dish, but it is a monster of a dish that needs be tried. If you're up in Porto, don't try it down in Lisbon. I've seen places that have it not the same. You have to have it up in Porto. It really originates here is.

Josh: Is a Fransisini a sandwich. 

Kristin: I haven't had that. 

Josh: Yes. I mean.  it's a sandwich.

It's about as much of a sandwich as a hotdog. As a sandwich. So I think people should know that. 

Kalie: Yeah, that's it's bread. It's a lot of meat. It's smothered in cheese and has tomatoey based sauce. It's so good. But you must be hungry when you eat it. And I recommend people eat it for lunch, because sometimes if you eat it for dinner, you're just stuffed the rest of the night. So be hungry, maybe have a light breakfast and then go for it for lunch.

Josh: Since your audience member asks about food and we're very enthusiastic about food, this has to be said. You can still find lunch specials like plates of the day for around €5, and you can have like a decent dinner out at a Portuguese place for under €10. But you can also go to some like really nice Portuguese bourgeois posher food restaurants and not break the bank. I'm talking like spending anywhere between 30 and €40 per person on a – on a set meal or whatever prefix. But then, you know, you can have your foreign foods that you would likel. You have between Lisbon and Porto, you can find pretty much any kind of foreign food that you would like. Now, it's not all the same. Like we haven't found a great Korean place here and that's a bummer. 

Kalie: And there's far less. There actually were two and one closed, so. But then Lisbon will have more options. So the foreign cuisines, Lisbon just has more restaurants, but you could still have those here. There's just less options as how many restaurants there are. 

Josh: The local food in the north is better, though. Yeah. Yeah, it's good.

Kristin: Okay. I'm ready for the food tour when I get back.

Josh: Do you like carbs?

Kristin: Yeah. He also asks, how is the availability of local produce and the quality? Like where do you guys do your produce shopping? Do you go to regular supermarkets or outdoor markets and are there any sorts of like local produce that stick out as extra high quality?

Josh: We're lazy, so we go to the supermarket and you know, a decent amount of Portuguese people are doing the same thing. I mean, some of the older generation still likes to go to the butcher, still likes to go to the local markets, I do see a decent amount of foreigners doing it as well. Our audience members talk about it all the time— are interested in the exact question that you just got there. Yes, it's easy and readily available to go to a fruit stand. Have like your little neighborhood fruit stand, your neighborhood butcher and get things done. It can be cheaper. It's not always cheaper. So you can do a price comparison. But a lot of the produce and stuff is if it's produced in Portugal and then it's going to be Portuguese, like they're not going to import something for no reason if that makes sense. So things are fresh, things are seasonal.

Seasonal is a big thing –are local. Yeah. Yeah. Go with the seasons. Like when you know cherries pop up like. Yes it's cherries season two weeks. Yeah. 

Kristin: That's the best. Yeah.

Kalie: Yeah. You don't get them for super long so. Yeah. So you load up on them, but that's fine because it's like I've had so many cherries and then it's the next fruit that's in. So. 

Josh: Exactly, yeah. 

Kristin: The old way of living. I do remember seeing the fruit stands, a lot of these questions we already answered. So that's good. Like Sergei had asked, what are the requirements for a long term visa or residency permit? I'll just direct in. Melinda asked the same thing so direct you guys to the D7 course. Nicola asked if you need to be able to speak Portuguese to live there, but you guys kind of already answered that that you can get by with English.

Josh: Learn Portuguese though.

Kalie: That's a little bit. Appreciate it. Broken. 

Kristin: Yeah. Yeah. If a Fadar asks about getting citizenship, but that could be something that you can get on a path to citizenship after getting temporary permanent residency. So that's probably the most common there. Jorge asked, What's the best surfing town or community close to Lisbon? You guys mentioned Arie Sarah, Nasaray 

Josh: Yeah, yeah. Those would be the two big ones.

Kristin: Jorge also said that he won't be surfing. I'll just be watching from the lighthouse.

Josh: Oh, then he needs to go to Nasaray, it’s the spot. Is where the big waves are. 

Kalie: That's when you think, Oh my, oh, my. Yeah. 

Josh: It's like when people aren't NASCAR fans, they're just fans of the crash. Then you go to Bristol Motor Speedway and watch the cars crash. Shout out to my hometown.

Kalie: And people are like, What? NASCAR?

Kristin: Hey, a lot of people like some sort of racing.

Josh: Yeah, true formula one's huge. Yeah.

Kristin: Yeah, they are. They have a race in Portugal too, right? Yeah. Are you guys going to go?

Josh: Probably not. We have a bunch of friends, actually, that got into. Is it the Amazon series?

There's a Amazon Prime series? Yeah, there's a series where they like actually started to tell the story of drivers and some of our friends got really into us. They're stoked about F1. We actually went to an F1 event in, Singapore and loved it, but we were more there for the concert to have like big international acts that come for concerts. Oh yeah, it was cool. The racing was cool. Yeah, yeah. I see Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel and those guys. But yeah.

Kristin: I went to the one in Miami.

Josh: Oh, sweet.

Kristin: It was hot, I bet. Yeah, but my dad is a race car driver, so I went with him.

Kalie: I think for us I'd since I mean, we enjoy all types of sports and we do like that, but if we're going to pick to do a different sport, like a sport, we do something different, especially with a two year old.

Kristin: Yeah. Yeah.

Kalie: Like we will be venturing out to soccer stadiums with her at some point. We'll probably do the F1 here, but not right away. We're soccer and MAA fans.

Kristin: Yeah. Oh, that's funny to see Kaylee and MAA. And that's a perfect segue to the next question from Tamara, who says, what are some outdoor activities to do in near Lisbon like water, sports or hiking or climbing, etc.?

Josh: I don't know about climbing, but but kind of all of the above.

Kalie: Hiking, biking, 

Josh: hiking.Biking. You have water sports as well. 

Kalie: Kayaking, sailing? 

Josh: Yeah, surfing.You can find a pickup soccer game.

Kalie: Yeah, there's lots of options and a lot of people are into that. So there's lots of groups that you can just I mean, there's websites if you're looking for something specific. And that's a great way to meet people too, that are have the, you know, the same passion for whatever that sport might be. But yeah, lots of options for outdoor stuff. And not just in Lisbon but across all over.

Kristin: Oh yeah. I haven't done any hiking there. Do you guys know of any like area to go hike besides just the hills in general?

Josh: It's nice and I think the the best would be Jeres. It's in the north, it's the National Park, National Forest National Park. Jeres It's j e r e s.

Kristin: You guys have good Portuguese pronunciation, so props for that.

Josh: We're trying. 

Kristin: We already answered a lot of these questions. Chanel is asking the cost of living compared to Southeast Asia and Portugal, which we talked about at the beginning, Nessa asking about the D7 visa application and like rental contracts. So also direct him to the course. And then Twivee was asking about neighborhoods. We talked about that and she also asked like how to navigate doctors visits and hospitals.

So I guess if you could just kind of give us your summary in a nutshell of like, how's the health care system there coming in as a foreigner? Like what are some of the costs or things that people can expect paying for health care out of pocket?

Josh: Sure. Yeah. I think overall, people will notice that their health care here is much less expensive than what they'll find in the States. I had a —a slight medical incident. Valencia's had doctor's appointments or whatever, just for being young, like pediatric care, stuff like normal stuff. Kaylee, fortunately, had not deal with anything. There is a service here that was started by a group of foreigners that helps out with kind of the language barrier and knowing who to go to and whatnot. And we can help connect people with them. But like for my medical instance that I had, I had to have an X-ray done after slipping on the kalsadas at after chasing after Valencia because she went running towards the road. It was like €60 for the X-ray and I think €50 for the consultation with the doctor. And then the follow up was free. 

Kalie: And private insurance covered most of it. 

Josh: Yeah, but that would have been my out of pocket payment.

Kalie: Yeah. I think that one we had to have it reimbursed.Yeah. So when you have the D7 as a resident, you can apply for your SNS, which is like your health care number and you get into the public health care system and it's not doesn't mean everything is free, it just means that stuff is subsidized for you and this is in public hospitals, public clinics. Then there is the option for private hospitals and private clinics. And you can top up a lot of people do it through their bank. You can have private insurance and there are variations as to what you want covered. But compared to like the states, for example, the deductibles are generally lower. It covers a lot more and it's just a lot more affordable. And a lot of doctors and nurses will speak English, especially the younger ones. Some of the older ones, it's a little harder, but a lot of them train outside of Portugal and then come back. So friends that we have had have had all good experiences, generally fairly quick. You don't have to go in and come back for something and go in maybe wait a little bit and then get it done or something like that. So pretty good. You know, obviously there will be some that have issues. I think that the ambulances are a little tricky because some of the ambulances don't have first responders in there, I guess. So they're more like just transporting you quickly rather than being able to help in an emergency situation. So there's that to keep in mind. But yeah, it's overall it's pretty good.

Kristin: Yeah. Do you guys have any extra supplemental insurance or do you just keep your insurance through the D7 visa?

Josh: So we ended up transitioning off of that plan that we had on to one. That's a national plan. It's still private, but it covers basically just Portugal. I mean, if we did travel and some major medical emergency happened, then it would kick in. So we transition because it was going to be like half the costs. 

Kalie: Yeah, it's actually. So one of the requirements is to have health insurance and something like repatriation. So you have to have some sort of international plan, but those tend to be a lot pricier, especially if you want to keep the U.S. on that plan. When you add U.S. is as one of the insurances. Yeah, as you know, it just skyrockets. So you need that for a part of you as a requirement for your visa. But when you do get here, it's your option. You don't have to have private here that covers you in Portugal. You can just go ahead and go with the national care and do public. But private just opens up a bit more doors for people to get into the private sector, which stuff happens faster, but sometimes they send you to the public hospitals because they're bigger and have more things available. So it kind of just depends on preference, but it ends up being a lot cheaper if you just do the international health care for your visa and then you drop down to something different when you get to Portugal.

Kristin: Okay. And then how much do you guys pay like per month or per year as a family to have that coverage?

Josh: We have the best coverage possible with the company that we're using and it's to 14, €14 per month. For the three of us. For the three of us. And we do know people who spend about €50.

€50. For private. For a family. For a family, yeah. Per Month. So it just depends on the range that you want to go with. Obviously that one, your deductibles going to be higher is not going to cover as much. Ours covers a lot just in case. So we went ahead with the higher one.

Kristin: Awesome. Yeah, that's great. Which company do you use?

Josh: So it's through our bank, which is Millennium based and the company is Medis. It's like Medis. Medis medical, M e d i s ..S is at the end of words in Portuguese is European Portuguese is ssshh sound okay.

Kristin: That shows how much Portuguese I know.

Josh: Librarians would love Portuguese susshen all the time. 

Kristin: Yeah, well, your accents are right on point. And thank you for spending so much time with us today, sharing all of your not all of your tips, because, you know, you have a lot of videos about Portugal, but a of introductory tips about living in Portugal and where can people follow you online to find more and get some help with their moves to Portugal?

Josh: We're most active on YouTube for sure, and we try to respond to all of the comments that we see so you can find us at Expats Everywhere on YouTube. And then we also have, you know, Instagram and Facebook. We don't really do Twitter, but we're very active on YouTube. So if people want to reach us over there, that'd be great. And check the Shownotes. You have both of our emails down there, the course link as well. Well, we just like helping people move and transition abroad. And similar to what you we just niche in to Portugal.

Kristin: Yeah helping people become expat go team.

Josh: That's a skill.

Kristin: That’s what we do.

Josh: That’s It.

Kristin: All right well thank you guys for joining us today. I'll let you get back because I know it's late over there. And thank you all for listening. And we will see you again next week. 

I hope you enjoyed today's interview with Josh and Kalee from Expats Everywhere. For more about living in Portugal, check out their YouTube channel. And if you'd like some help from me on your upcoming relocation or slow travel plans.

Then you can apply for my private group coaching program Ready to Relocate at TravelingwithKristin.com/apply